And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man`s art, and that man`s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
~Sonnet 29, Shakespeare
As another birthday rolls around and as what's left of my hair turns grayer and as I peer closer at this computer screen to read these electronic images, I find I am still tormented by regrets.
It is no longer fashionable to regret. Wisdom teachings from East and West alike that have found a such vast readership with 21st century Anglo-American seekers of enlightenment or salvation (take your pick) relate the folly of entertaining Regret and its future-oriented sibling, Worry.
Books such as Tolle's The Power of Now, the writings of Judith Orloff, Deepak Chopra and so many other modern writers as well as much of the mystical writing of antiquity extol the virtues of living in the present. Regrets lie in the past; worries in the future. Let past and future go; live just for the moment.
Even modern physicists have horned in on what was once the province of the mystic. Some exponents of the Quantum Theory postulate that time as a sequence of events is actually an illusion. In this view, beneath the surface of our lives we live in timelessness. Time as we know it is a kind of localized consensus reality.
And I believe in living mindfully in the present too. . .with all my mind but with so little of my heart and soul at times.
I just wish that after years of study of ancient scriptures, spiritual books and experiences in contemplation and meditation that I truly did not feel so much regret in my heart for opportunities lost or squandered, love unshared, words said or unsaid.
I suppose it is the height of folly and self-delusion to wallow in regrets. As British writer, Katherine Mansfield, states:
Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only for wallowing in.
Yeah, Katherine, I know all that good stuff, can quote chapter and verse of the spiritual literature with the best of them. Yet, when I am honest with myself, I realize that in the personal places where I live and that I so seldom show others, I lament for many of the choices that I have made in my life.
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